Chief Innovation Officer: CIO Professional Development Series

Overview: The notion of the CIO being the "chief innovation officer" is attractive. Challenging business conditions have morphed from being a phase in the economic cycle to being the new normal. Very few organizations can conduct their business in a pre-Lehman Brothers manner, and so innovation is highly relevant to economic survival. This in turn represents an opportunity to move the CIO center stage in terms of business relevance.

Unfortunately, this move does not seem to be happening. Despite organizations making innovation a priority, the innovation budget is typically bypassing the IT function. Given that most business innovation has a new technology element, this situation suggests that the leadership does not perceive its IT function as an innovation factory. In effect, the stimulating element of the IT budget is being handed directly to the users. Thus many IT functions are left to handle the mundane domains of infrastructure and application management.